Benjamin H. Warder
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Benjamin Head Warder (November 15, 1824 – January 13, 1894) was an American manufacturer of agricultural machinery, based in
Springfield, Ohio Springfield is a city in the U.S. state of Ohio and the county seat of Clark County, Ohio, Clark County. The municipality is located in southwestern Ohio and is situated on the Mad River (Ohio), Mad River, Buck Creek, and Beaver Creek, approxim ...
, for much of his career. After he had retired, in 1902 the company he co-founded merged with four others to form
International Harvester The International Harvester Company (often abbreviated by IHC, IH, or simply International ( colloq.)) was an American manufacturer of agricultural and construction equipment, automobiles, commercial trucks, lawn and garden products, household e ...
. Warder commissioned and donated a new library (now the Warder Public Library) for Springfield in 1890, as a memorial to his parents. After retiring from his business in 1886 and moving to Washington, D.C., Warder purchased some large estates in areas then considered "country" and developed them for new residential subdivisions in Northwest Washington. Four were later combined in 1908 for the neighborhood now known as Park View. Warder died in
Cairo Cairo ( ; ar, القاهرة, al-Qāhirah, ) is the capital of Egypt and its largest city, home to 10 million people. It is also part of the largest urban agglomeration in Africa, the Arab world and the Middle East: The Greater Cairo metro ...
in 1894, while traveling in Egypt.


Youth

Benjamin Head Warder was born as one of the nine children of Jeremiah Warder (1780-1849) and his wife Ann (née Aston) (1784-1871),
Quakers Quakers are people who belong to a historically Protestant Christian set of denominations known formally as the Religious Society of Friends. Members of these movements ("theFriends") are generally united by a belief in each human's abil ...
from
Philadelphia, Pennsylvania Philadelphia, often called Philly, is the largest city in the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania, the sixth-largest city in the U.S., the second-largest city in both the Northeast megalopolis and Mid-Atlantic regions after New York City. Sinc ...
. They settled in
Springfield, Ohio Springfield is a city in the U.S. state of Ohio and the county seat of Clark County, Ohio, Clark County. The municipality is located in southwestern Ohio and is situated on the Mad River (Ohio), Mad River, Buck Creek, and Beaver Creek, approxim ...
, by the time of the 1830 United States Census. Jeremiah had been a member of his father's shipping firm, John Warder & Sons (later Warder Brothers). John Warder had invested in Ohio land, and bequeathed Jeremiah $10,000 in land.


Career

In 1850 (or 1852), Benjamin Warder co-founded Warder, Brokaw & Child Company. He paid $30,000 for patent rights to "The Champion," a combined
reaper A reaper is a agricultural machinery, farm implement or person that wikt:reap#Verb, reaps (cuts and often also gathers) crops at harvest when they are ripe. Usually the crop involved is a cereal grass. The first documented reaping machines were ...
&
mower A mower is a person or machine that cuts (mows) grass or other plants that grow on the ground. Usually mowing is distinguished from reaping, which uses similar implements, but is the traditional term for harvesting grain crops, e.g. with reape ...
invented by William N. Whiteley. Warder's company manufactured the machines, but in the beginning he shared distribution with Whiteley and others. By 1860, the Springfield firm was operating as Warder & Child. In 1866, it was reorganized as Warder, Mitchell & Company, with John J. Glessner and Asa S. Bushnell as junior partners. Senior partner Ross Mitchell retired in 1880, and the firm became Warder, Bushnell & Glessner Company. It manufactured harvesting machinery – reapers, binders, mowers and hay rakes – under the "Champion" brand name. Warder and Bushnell managed the factories in Springfield, which covered 20 acres. The company opened a branch office in Chicago in 1865, headed by Glessner. This developed as its most profitable, growing along with that major city: in 1871, the Chicago office sold about 800 machines; in 1884, it sold 25,000 machines. By 1886, the company employed more than 1,000 workers, and was exporting to foreign countries. In 1908, the 2,000,000th Champion machine was sold. Springfield was nicknamed "The Champion City" after this company's brand name.


Retirement

After Warder retired from business in 1886, he moved his family to Washington, D.C., and built a house at 1515 K Street NW. Boston architect
Henry Hobson Richardson Henry Hobson Richardson, FAIA (September 29, 1838 – April 27, 1886) was an American architect, best known for his work in a style that became known as Richardsonian Romanesque. Along with Louis Sullivan and Frank Lloyd Wright, Richardson is one ...
is credited with the design, but died four months into the project. Richardson's successor firm,
Shepley, Rutan and Coolidge Shepley, Rutan and Coolidge was a successful architecture firm based in Boston, Massachusetts, operating between 1886 and 1915, with extensive commissions in monumental civic, religious, and collegiate architecture in the spirit and style of Henry ...
, completed the house in 1888. Upon moving to Washington, Warder entered real estate development. He purchased the late Asa Whitney's country estate of Whitney Close from the heirs of Catherine M. Whitney on June 4, 1886, for the sum of $60,024. He subdivided the 43-acre tract into building lots for a new development named Whitney Close. This was followed by the subdivision and development of other "country" properties in the area. These subdivisions: including Whitney Close, Schuetzen Park, and Bellevue, were organized into a single neighborhood known as Park View in 1908. Park View's Warder Street commemorates Warder's role as real estate developer. As a memorial to his parents, Warder commissioned Shepley, Rutan and Coolidge to design a new public library for Springfield, Ohio. Warder Public Library was begun in 1887 and completed in 1890. Warder commissioned a speculative office building, designed by architect Nicholas T. Haller and constructed at 9th & F Street NW, Washington, DC (1892). Benjamin H. Warder died in
Cairo Cairo ( ; ar, القاهرة, al-Qāhirah, ) is the capital of Egypt and its largest city, home to 10 million people. It is also part of the largest urban agglomeration in Africa, the Arab world and the Middle East: The Greater Cairo metro ...
on January 13, 1894, while on a trip to Egypt. His body was returned to the United States, where he was buried in
Rock Creek Cemetery Rock Creek Cemetery is an cemetery with a natural and rolling landscape located at Rock Creek Church Road, NW, and Webster Street, NW, off Hawaii Avenue, NE, in the Petworth neighborhood of Washington, D.C., United States. It is across the stree ...
in a bronze sarcophagus weighing 3,500 lbs, cast by the Gorham Manufacturing Company of Elmwood, Rhode Island. It was designed by Philip Martiny, in collaboration with architects Shepley, Rutan, and Coolidge.


Family

Warder married Ellen Nancy Ormsby and they had three daughters: *Elizabeth (Betsey), married Ralph Nicholson Ellis (February 15, 1906) *Ellen Nancy, married Ward Thoron (November 15, 1893, divorced 1911); married Major Henry Leonard (July 27, 1914) *Alice (1877-1952), married John W. Garrett (December 24, 1908)


Legacy

*
Warder Mansion Warder Mansion (also known as Warder-Totten House) is an apartment complex at 2633 16th Street Northwest, in the Meridian Hill Park neighborhood of Washington, D.C. It is the only surviving building in the city designed by architect Henry Hobson ...
, 1515 K Street NW, Washington, DC (1885–88), H. H. Richardson, architect. In 1923, the house was disassembled and relocated to 2633 16th Street NW. * Warder Public Library, Springfield, Ohio (1887–90),
Shepley, Rutan and Coolidge Shepley, Rutan and Coolidge was a successful architecture firm based in Boston, Massachusetts, operating between 1886 and 1915, with extensive commissions in monumental civic, religious, and collegiate architecture in the spirit and style of Henry ...
, architects. *Tomb of Benjamin H. Warder,
Rock Creek Cemetery Rock Creek Cemetery is an cemetery with a natural and rolling landscape located at Rock Creek Church Road, NW, and Webster Street, NW, off Hawaii Avenue, NE, in the Petworth neighborhood of Washington, D.C., United States. It is across the stree ...
, Washington, DC (1898),
McKim, Mead and White McKim, Mead & White was an American architectural firm that came to define architectural practice, urbanism, and the ideals of the American Renaissance in fin de siècle New York. The firm's founding partners Charles Follen McKim (1847–1909), ...
, architects. *In 1920, Warder's widow donated a collection of American sculpture to the
Smithsonian Institution The Smithsonian Institution ( ), or simply the Smithsonian, is a group of museums and education and research centers, the largest such complex in the world, created by the U.S. government "for the increase and diffusion of knowledge". Founded ...
, including works by
William Henry Rinehart William Henry Rinehart (September 13, 1825 – October 28, 1874) was a noted American sculptor. He is considered "the last important American sculptor to work in the classical style." Biography The son of Israel Rinehart (1792–1871) and Mary ...
and
Hiram Powers Hiram Powers (July 29, 1805 – June 27, 1873) was an American neoclassical sculptor. He was one of the first 19th-century American artists to gain an international reputation, largely based on his famous marble sculpture ''The Greek Slave''. ...
. Benjamin's grandmother Ann (Head) Warder wrote a series of journals; they mention his grandfather and father. These are now held by the
Pennsylvania Historical Society The Historical Society of Pennsylvania is a long-established research facility, based in Philadelphia. It is a repository for millions of historic items ranging across rare books, scholarly monographs, family chronicles, maps, press reports and v ...
.Ann Head Warder Papers, Pennsylvania Historical Society


Notes


References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Warder, Benjamin H. 1824 births 1894 deaths People from Springfield, Ohio 19th-century American businesspeople